


In Your Embrace

by Dracoduceus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (even though octopi have arms not tentacles), M/M, Mer AU, Mer!Hanzo, Tentacle Sex, Teratophilia, Written for mermay, background r76, mer!mccree, please don't look too closely at the dubious marine biology I used here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: Jesse is fully expecting to have to fight and bribe his way back into Hanzo's good graces. After a long swim to bring back the fish that his adopted human fathers intend to raise and study, he goes to search out his pretty mate.Turns out Hanzo has a much different idea of how McCree should show how sorry he is.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 9
Kudos: 152





	In Your Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for MerMay and posted elsewhere a few weeks ago. I have a whole bunch of notes about this, it's crazy haha. But to summarize...
> 
> Hanzo is based off of a Great Pacific Octopus and Jesse is based off of a Striped Marlin. Jesse was raised by conservationists Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes and helps them with their work. For the past few years, they'd been working with Hanzo, who they rescued from an exotic animals dealer. He agreed to liaise with the local mer populations, as he is able to speak in human languages and understands a surprising amount of mer languages as well. 
> 
> Jesse helps with the yearly migration of salmon from the waters off the west coast US up north. He'll stay with them until the next year's fry hatch and escort them down. Sometimes he's able to accompany Sombra on her own migration south, as she escorts grey whales. He is accompanied by a pack of salmon sharks.

Jesse waved goodbye to Sombra and called for his pack. They swam excitedly to him, clearly happy to be back in home waters. Most of them were old hands and knew what to do, swirling around him in a little whirlpool but they were his good babies and waited for his signal. 

He ran his clawed fingers over rough skin, over the leading edge of their dorsal fins and over their mottled bellies. They bumped him with their pointed snouts affectionately and he laughed. “Go on,” he told them and gave them the signal that they were waiting for. “Let’s get them corralled.” 

As he watched, they scattered in all directions. The salmon fry, which they had been escorting, startled; more of his pack swam faster and urged them closer into a large cloud of tiny tails and fins. With a last smile, Jesse pumped his tail and surfaced. 

He wasn’t surprised to see two humans waiting for him and quickly swam over. 

“Hey, _mijo_ ,” the darker of the two humans said, reaching out to pat Jesse’s head affectionately. “Welcome back.” 

Jesse chattered, baring his serrated teeth. “Your friend is a menace,” the other man said, but there was affection in his voice as he reached down to clasp hands with Jesse. Having been raised by the two, Jesse was familiar with the human gesture of greeting and returned the clasp, called a handshake. 

“What have you brought for us?” the human called Reyes asked as if he wasn’t aware of what Jesse was bringing back. 

Even so, Jesse reached into the pouch wrapped around his waist and pulled out the rudimentary translator that they developed to communicate with each other. Jesse couldn’t really speak the language of humans and over the years that the two conservationists had raised him, they had developed a system of communication. 

“ _I didn’t have a chance to count them_ ,” a voice said from the machine. It sounded like the moving pictures that Reyes and Morrison used to let him watch as a fry. “ _But we had a lot of fry hatch in the northern waters._ ” 

Turning, he found the sleek tips of dorsal find from his pack peeking above the water as they herded their group closer. Morrison stomped over on his heavy boots to lift the sea gate. The mesh was too fine to let large predators in, but at this stage the salmon fry were small enough that most of them could fit. 

He’d have to post some of his pack outside to make sure that they don’t swim out where it was dangerous. More often than not, he and his mate raised the salmon in the open water but as fry, they were too vulnerable. 

Not to mention his parents, as humans called their progenitors or those that had raised them, had information that they wanted to collect. 

Reyes made a high sound called a whistle. “That sure is a lot.” 

_“Sombra’s whales helped_ ,” Jesse said proudly. “ _And I had more of my pack with me this year._ ” 

Kneeling at the edge of the water, Reyes patted Jesse’s shoulder in a human gesture of approval. “Get them in the pen and then go and find that troublesome friend of yours.” 

In most years, Jesse would stick around to help them collect their data, but this year he was eager to return to his own home that he shared with his pretty mate. 

Hanzo had been quite upset, as he was every year, that he couldn’t accompany Jesse north. Jesse would love to have Hanzo along with him, but short of having one of Sombra’s whales, or a few of Jesse’s pack carry him, he couldn’t keep up with the salmon. If he were to accompany Jesse, the migration would take much longer and would mess with the salmon’s natural patterns. 

That didn’t mean that he didn’t miss Hanzo when he was gone, though. A migration cycle, to take salmon north to spawn and then bring the fry back down, was too long in his opinion. 

Tucking the communication device into his pouch, Jesse sank beneath the water and surveyed his pack. They were still herding the fry into the pen and Jesse swam to join them. 

As they were finishing up, McCree noticed two other shapes that had joined the effort and grinned. The two sea lions were distinct in their markings and their scars. 

Hanzo had gotten word that they were back. 

Excitedly, he looked around but was unsurprised that he didn’t see Hanzo. He was always cranky when Jesse returned, and had a tendency to hide himself away until he felt like Jesse was suitably sorry for leaving him. More often than not, the both of them grew too impatient to stay apart for too long. 

As the last fry was urged into the holding pen by Jesse’s sharks, the sea lions swam excitedly to him. He rubbed his hands over their bodies, laughing when their whiskers tickled his cheeks. 

He set some of his pack to guard the entrance of the enclosure before following the excited arcs of Hanzo’s sea lions. Hanzo had rescued them as pups when they had wandered too far from the beach. Despite his best efforts, Hanzo hadn’t been able to get rid of them since. 

They were always Hanzo’s downfall. The pups (though they were pups no longer) were always excited to greet Jesse when he returned...and would always, without fail, return to Hanzo afterwards. No matter how hard Hanzo tried to hide, he could never seem to hide from the pups. 

He wasn’t surprised that the pups were leading him toward their cave home and grinned to himself. 

After being adopted by the pups, Hanzo had been worried about where they’d stay. Sea lions breathed air, after all, and didn’t have gills like Jesse and Hanzo did. And they were young so leaving them alone overnight worried Hanzo. 

For a while he had coaxed them to stay with the nearby rookery, but that had only worked so long as he remained nearby, or the pups would leap back into the water to try and follow him. The other sea lions hadn’t liked Hanzo’s presence though they were surprisingly tolerant. Perhaps they also understood the stubbornness of pups. 

Still, it was not a viable solution in the long-run. Fortunately, when Jesse brought up the problem with his parents, they had a potential solution. They placed a call (which was what humans called a long-distance communication with other humans) to fellow conservationists in the area.

Much to Hanzo’s distress (as he wasn’t used to human presence in his territory), three of these conservationists spent a week building an artificial cave home for them. It featured the caves that Hanzo and Jesse preferred but also had an area that, hidden from most humans, protruded above the waves. It allowed for the pups to have an air pocket so that they could sleep beside Hanzo. 

Now he followed the pups into their cave, through the spiral entrance like the whorls of a horn snail, and into the large cavern where he and Hanzo made their home. The pups surfaced in their cave area, barked at each other as they caught their breath, then turned around and darted out. 

Laughing, Jesse looked around for his mate.

Surprisingly, he found Hanzo easily, splayed out on one of the false-rock shelves—surprising because Hanzo typically hid from him until Jesse could beg him for forgiveness and bribe him with the treasures he’d acquired during his long voyage.

“Are you just going to swim there and stare?” Hanzo demanded.

Laughing, Jesse swam closer, looping his arms around Hanzo’s waist. Immediately, his lovely mate caught his armored arm and inspected it critically. His sensitive fingertips found the most recent marks and he gave Jesse an unreadable look.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Jesse assured Hanzo quickly, shivering when he felt more of Hanzo’s arms lift to curl around him. Two played with his dorsal fin, another two wrapped around his lower half near his caudal fin; two looped around Jesse’s unarmored arm and the last two explored the grooves in his armor. 

Hanzo made an impatient sound and the two arms around his dorsal fin instead moved along Jesse’s sides, their suckers pressing little kisses. They began pulling off his gear and the two arms around Jesse’s caudal fin lifted to help them. 

“‘It wasn’t so bad’,” Hanzo echoed, lips pulling downward into a scowl. 

Jesse tried to catch Hanzo’s face but the arms wrapped around both arms stopped him. Though they seemed smaller and weaker in comparison to Jesse’s arms, all of Hanzo’s arms were very strong and kept Jesse neatly in place. He was very neatly trapped. 

He watched as Hanzo continued to trace the fresh marks in the armor. Hanzo’s arms pulled off the rest of his gear—the packs framing his dorsal fin, the folded coat of thick seal fur that he wore in the cold waters much further north. They fell to the bottom of their cave, followed by the weapons that Jesse used to defend himself while driving the salmon. 

Done, the arms that had undressed him (to use a human phrase) returned to Jesse’s sides, petting him as if searching for more injuries, to make sure that he was well. They also pressed little kisses with their suckers over his scales. One seems focused on his dorsal fin, tracing the bones and where they connected to Jesse’s spine. 

Very carefully, Hanzo began peeling off the damaged armor on Jesse’s arm. His arm had healed, the bruises and nicks of sharp teeth faded, but Hanzo’s fingers traced them as if they were fresh. 

“‘It wasn’t so bad’,” Hanzo repeated. “But it could have been.” 

“Hey,” Jesse said, trying to reach for Hanzo but was held back by his mate’s strong arms. “I’m fine. We scared him off, don’t worry. He didn’t even nick any of the pack.” 

Suddenly, Jesse was reeled in. He wondered, as he always did when Hanzo pulled him in like that, if that is what Hanzo had felt when he had been reeled in by humans. 

Handily, Hanzo distracted him from such dark thoughts by wrapping all ten of his arms around Jesse, pulling him tight. “It’s such a dangerous run,” Hanzo murmured. 

“It would be more dangerous if I don’t have my pack with me,” Jesse pointed out gently. “And I have my armor to protect me. Mers like me live out in the deep sea—out there, it’s much more dangerous. I’m spoiled living so close to shore.” 

Hanzo’s arms tightened. “I hate that I can’t keep up with you,” he said softly. “And if something happens, I can’t be there for you.” 

Sighing, Jesse wrapped his arms around Hanzo. “I wish I could bring you with me more than anything, Starshine,” Jesse assured him. “I wish more than anything that I could have you with me, that there was a way to bring you along. But you don’t know how much it means to me to know that you’re safe here. That I have someone I can come home to.” 

Gently pulling himself away from Hanzo, he swam down to his gear and found the special pouch he had carried back with him. He returned quickly, and Hanzo’s arms wrapped around him, curling around his waist and tail and dorsal fin, the last pair coiling around his neck while Hanzo’s hands cupped his cheeks. 

“When humans are in love,” Jesse explained as he held out the small box in his hand. “They exchange gifts—like mers. But they exchange jewelry most often, usually something to be worn around their fingers.” 

Hanzo snorted and lifted Jesse’s free hand between them. They were fully webbed and could not accept the jewelry that humans wore. In comparison, Hanzo’s fingers had less webbing to allow for more use of his clever fingers. Not that he needed more help—his arms were dexterous, their tips tapered to delicate points that were just as, if not more flexible than human fingers. 

Even so, Hanzo’s fingers could not accept human finger-jewelry.

But his forearms could.

Jesse opened the box and presented its contents to Hanzo. “I spoke to the conservationists in the north,” Jesse told Hanzo who inspected the pieces of metal. “They helped me make it. It’s modeled after the stars I use to guide my way,” Jesse said softly. “And they’re from sky-stones, which Morrison says are sometimes the lights we see above us at night. The researchers say that one of the stones fell and they were able to find them. What better material to use to lead me back to my Starshine?”

For a long moment, Hanzo stared intensely at the piece before gently reaching out to touch it.

“It goes around your arm,” Jesse said softly. “I did not think that you would like anything around your neck.”

For one of his sets of gills were there and for another, the humans that had captured him had stored him with a heavy ring around his neck—unlike his octopus kin, Hanzo wasn’t able to squeeze out of it and had been trapped. Since then he rightfully feared being touched around the neck, even by Jesse. 

“Humans exchange gifts,” Hanzo said, turning a very intense gaze to Jesse. Two of his arms curled around the wrist that held the box, the fine tips petting shyly at the fingers curled around the box. “When they ask each other to be mates.” 

Jesse gently reached out, surprised that Hanzo’s clinging arms let him move, and cupped Hanzo’s cheek. “I know I’d never asked you properly,” he said apologetically. “But we’d just kind of skipped that whole courting phase and just went to mates.”

“You were never a proper mer,” Hanzo agreed faintly. 

As he always did, Jesse smiled. “I was raised by humans,” he pointed out. “I’ve never been a proper mer.” He paused. “So...will you? Be my mate?” 

Hanzo’s arms tensed, gripping Jesse tightly. “You have to ask?” he demanded, baring his sharp fangs. The arms wrapped around his waist and dorsal fin reeled him in closer, curling tighter around his tail and caudal fin. 

“We had never really discussed it,” Jesse said weakly. “I just...I know that you go to other tribes. I’m sure others see that you don’t have—”

To his surprise, Hanzo began to laugh. “Are you afraid that I would stray?” he asked, voice surprisingly kind. 

“Of course not!” Jesse assured him, somewhat perplexed. “But I also want something to show people that you’re mine.” 

“Like the humans’ cattle? A brand?” Hanzo seemed amused. “And what of me? Am I not allowed a way to mark you as well?” 

Jesse squinted at Hanzo. “Are you teasing me?” 

“I am,” Hanzo agreed. “But I must say, the idea of marking you and being marked by you in this way is...sweet.” 

He pouted until two of Hanzo’s arms curled around to cup his cheeks; his hands caught Jesse’s. “Mers aren’t humans,” Hanzo reminded him. “Many aren’t monogamous by default.” Jesse deflated a bit and Hanzo laughed. “That does not mean that I’m not opposed to the idea. Of being your kept mer.” 

Pleased, Jesse dropped the box in his hand—which Hanzo caught in one of his arms—and pressed his forehead to Hanzo’s in a mer kiss. “And I’ll be yours.” 

“Good,” Hanzo said, baring his fangs. “Because I’m not good at sharing.” Slowly they drifted down, no longer held up by the lazy movement of Jesse’s tail. Two of Hanzo’s arms caught the rocks, stopping their fall, while the remaining eight drifted lazily over Jesse’s body. “Enough talk of this. I’ve missed you and would like to hold you again.” 

Jesse grinned, giddy. “Not just holding, I hope.” 

“Of course not,” Hanzo said. He shifted his grip so that he held them aloft with his hands, gripping the ridges in the false sides of their cave. In two of his other arms, Hanzo caught and restrained Jesse’s. More began petting along Jesse’s sides, their suckers just shy of making marks on his sides. 

“Han,” Jesse protested, wiggling in Hanzo’s strong grip. Two more of Hanzo’s arms curled around Jesse’s caudal fin, holding it in place in an iron grip. “Han that’s not fair.” 

Hanzo snorted. Two more of his arms curled around, trailing their tapered tips where his hard scales gave way to softer skin. His touch tingled, his suckers pressing obscene kisses as they moved. 

“What’s not fair?” Hanzo asked too-innocently. Two of his arms dragged down Jesse’s front, lingering where Jesse wanted them most. 

Jesse arched into his touch, squeezing his eyes shut. “I missed this,” he gasped. 

“Me holding you close like this?” Hanzo asked with just the right touch of mocking in his voice. The very tip of his arms found Jesse’s cloaca, where the edges were already beginning to bulge outward and split. 

“Yes,” Jesse breathed. The very tip of his cock began to peek out and he made a choking sound when the tapered tip of one of Hanzo’s arms curled around it. As more of it began to evert, more of Hanzo’s arm curled around it, his suckers working gently over them. Another poked curiously at the edges of Jesse’s cloaca, mapping out the edges as they began to split. 

Jesse wiggled, twisting in Hanzo’s arms but was held fast, unable to break free. “Hanzo,” he whispered. “Please.” 

“Please what?” Hanzo asked, distracted. His eyes were half-closed as he watched Jesse wiggle, his eyes jumping from Jesse’s face, his arched back, the contrast of his arms against Jesse’s blue and silver scales, where the tips of his arms were pressing into Jesse’s cloaca. 

Colors were washing like waves over his body. Dark red, maroon, seemingly his favorite shade of pale blue like the sunlight falling through the water to the sand, pale grey like a rainy sky. 

“Hanzo,” Jesse wheezed as he fought Hanzo’s strong hold. “Hanzo please.” 

The arm wrapped around Jesse’s cock, which was nearly completely everted now, began to ripple, tightening and releasing from base to tip and back. Those not holding Jesse in place joined it, prodding and teasing at Jesse’s cloaca, coiling around his cock. 

“Please what?” Hanzo asked in a cracked whisper. “Did you not wish for me to hold you? Is this not what you wanted?” 

One of his arms slipped into Jesse’s cloaca, wiggling the very tip into the tight space beside his everted cock. Jesse choked, his cock jumping in Hanzo’s grip.

“I missed doing this with you,” Hanzo murmured, using an arm to pet along Jesse’s cheek, following his spine to coil around Jesse’s dorsal fin. “Do you want me to stop?” 

“Let me touch,” Jesse begged.

Hanzo smiled and Jesse realized that this was how Hanzo decided to “punish” him. Instead of wooing him all over again with gifts to be allowed back into Hanzo’s arms, Jesse would instead be begging in a very different way. 

“Please,” Jesse said, speaking faster. If he begged enough, then perhaps Hanzo would let him touch, let Jesse hold him close. “Please Hanzo, please let me touch you. Please let me hold you darling, sweetheart, Starshine.” 

Leaning close, Hanzo pressed his forehead to Jesse’s. His arms cradled him close, two of them wiggling into Jesse’s cloaca while two more stroked his cock more eagerly. They wiggled and twisted as if trying to pry him open. 

They had done such things before, Hanzo wiggling as many of the tapered tips of his arms into Jesse as could be managed. It would leave Jesse gaping for some time later and aching in the most wonderful way with each movement of his tail. With every move and every ache, Jesse would be reminded of what happened, would feel the reminder of Hanzo’s regard as he went about his day. 

The arms in Jesse’s cloaca twined around each other and he choked, arching painfully as he came as they coiled and twisted and wiggled in him. Hanzo continued to stroke him, inside and out, until Jesse was shaking and trying to pull away in overstimulation. 

Hanzo was breathing hard as well and reeled Jesse in the rest of the way so that they were pressed fully against each other. As Jesse came down, he could feel something pressing against his hip. “You have more in you, don’t you?” Hanzo breathed as the arms prying open Jesse’s cloaca slowly pulled back. 

“Hanzo,” Jesse breathed as the tapered tips of those same arms held him obscenely open. He shivered, still tingling from head to fin from orgasm. When he tried to move, he found that Hanzo’s grip on his arms was as strong as ever. “Hanzo please.” 

He could feel his pretty mate shiver. “Yes,” Hanzo gasped, though what exactly he was responding to, Jesse wasn’t certain. Wrapped securely in Hanzo’s arms, Jesse nuzzled close, the only thing he could do, and gasped when he felt one of Hanzo’s arms guide his cock to Jesse’s open cloaca. 

“Hanzo!” Jesse breathed. 

Hanzo nuzzled against Jesse’s face, his cheeks. “Have you missed me?” he asked as he very slowly slid into Jesse. One of his arms curled around Jesse’s cock, keeping it hard and everted. 

“Yes,” Jesse insisted, voice cracking. “Of course. I missed you so much, Starshine.” He could feel Hanzo’s cock, which was nearly as prehensile as his arms, move around in him, pressing in deep. “Starshine,” he gasped. 

He could feel Hanzo bare his teeth, felt him shudder. Jesse knew that he must be close. After all, he had been as abstinent as Jesse had been while he drove the salmon north—and historically speaking, neither of them could remain separate from each other for very long after Jesse returned. 

“I love you, Starshine,” Jesse breathed, nuzzling against Hanzo’s face. They began to drop downward as Hanzo released his grip on the rock, wrapping his last set of arms around Jesse’s chest. His clawed hands pricked at the armored scales of Jesse’s back as he held him tight. 

Hanzo hissed something in his own language as one of his arms encouraged Jesse’s cock to curl around his, to press the tapered tip to Hanzo’s own softened slit. 

It was Jesse’s turn to curse as Hanzo’s arms wrapped tightly around him. They drifted downward slowly, lost in each other. “My lovely mate,” Hanzo breathed. Jesse could feel his cock twitch, twist. All of his arms coiled tightly and his claws drew shallow lines in Jesse’s back. 

Jesse’s second orgasm caught him entirely by surprise. Buried deeply in Hanzo, feeling his body clenching around him with the movement of his arms, feeling all of Hanzo wrapped around him, Jesse shuddered, groaning, and curled into Hanzo. It made him clench weakly around Hanzo who in turn cursed in his own language and also came, his arms shuddering. 

He must have passed out because the next thing he knew he was nestled in the little shelf that they used as their sleeping area. Jesse’s gear was stored in their proper places with his damaged armor on the little shelf, modeled after the human desks that he’d seen Reyes and Morrison working on, to be repaired later. 

Hanzo appeared a moment later, his hunting sacks held in his arms. One was full of shellfish, a delicacy that Jesse hadn’t appreciated until getting to know Hanzo, and the other full of fish. 

“You’re awake,” Hanzo said, sounding upset. He half-swum half-climbed up to Jesse’s level and dropped off his haul. Some of the fish flopped in protest, struggling against the net—they were caught in some of Hanzo’s clever traps then, as Hanzo didn’t hunt the larger fish like the ones in his basket. 

“Hey, Starshine,” Jesse said, eyes dropping to look at Hanzo’s arm. It seems that while Jesse was asleep, Hanzo had gotten the jewelry out and had put it on. 

Seeing where Jesse was looking, Hanzo smiled. He coiled two of his arms around Jesse’s caudal fin and stretched his body over Jesse’s. Just that gentle touch of Hanzo’s smooth skin against his cloaca, still tender, made him hiss but when Hanzo tried to move away, Jesse caught and held him in place. 

“I like seeing you in that,” Jesse said, brushing a hand over the dark metal of the armband. “In my mark.” 

Hanzo pressed his forehead to Jesse’s in a mer kiss. “I will need to find a suitable gift for you as well. But that will take time and that is for later. For now, I brought us food.” 

“I saw,” Jesse said, eyeing the fish. Hanzo may love his shellfish, but they weren’t meals in Jesse’s book. Oyster and abalone were fine treats but nothing could beat a good, meaty fish. 

Deftly, Hanzo portioned out their meals, keeping a smaller fish for himself while giving the rest to Jesse. Two of his arms, using a human tool called an oyster shucker given to him by Morrison, began prying open the shellfish. 

Seeing Hanzo’s haul, as well as the amount of fish in the net, Jesse looked at Hanzo in surprise. “This is a lot of food, Starshine.” 

Hanzo’s face split into a hungry grin. “You’re hungry and tired from your journey,” he said too-sweetly. “And you have a lot of work ahead of you still.” 

“I’m not scheduled to help Reyes and Morrison today,” Jesse said, perplexed as he pulled out a fish from the net sack. 

“I know,” Hanzo purred and Jesse shivered at the promise in his words. “That is not the ‘work’ I have in mind for you.” 

Jesse shivered again. “Guess I better eat up. I got my work cut out for me getting you to forgive me for leaving you behind” 

Leaning in, Hanzo gave him a mer kiss and handed him one of the oysters he had opened. “I’m glad you got the message.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully you enjoyed this. I had a lot of fun writing it, even if it went on for longer than I had initially planned. 
> 
> Feel free to come by and yell at me on Twitter at [Dracoduceus](https://twitter.com/dracoduceus).
> 
> ~DC


End file.
